Social media encompasses our lives now. Between posting about life events or seeing what your family is up to on Facebook, to quick snaps to friends, and then exploring Instagram, just to name a few. The hours spent on our smart phones amounts to many.
At jobs, there are many social media policies. Generally this stems from the company not wanting bad publicity and to keep employees off their devices in the workplace. You will hear people say to be careful what you post. As much as this is a true statement, we live in a world that is ever evolving. Things today are more acceptable and during the pandemic Onlyfans had become large site for extra income. There were many accounts that used this as an outlet to post art that could not be posted elsewhere as “women's nipples equals sexual indecency”.
I am a creator, an artist. I am a photographer and model. Art is my outlet for stress, it induces self compassion, and brings me to a different feeling of being me. In fall of 2018 I started to model. None of this was paid, however it was with professional photographers. I started to go to photomeets and even set up photoshoots where I was just the model. It was exhilarating to see how different photographers could capture your own unique beauty. This opened me back up to self portraits.
Self portrait photography was one of the first types of photography I dabbled in when I got my camera over a decade ago. Whenever I needed some self love or had a creative burst I would pick up my camera and snag some shots. As I got older, I finally understood what my mom taught us about bodies.
All bodies are just that, bodies. There is no shame in it clothed or unclothed and naked. I never understood how one could be so comfortable in their skin as to shed layers in front of others. Modeling helped me with that. Modeling helped me see that my body is beautiful in different clothes, shapes, and lighting. I started to say “we are all just a bag of bones”, meaning at the end we are all just these cells wandering around and only our minds tell us we are not worthy.
Modeling became a passion I did a lot of from 2018-2021 and met so many amazing people. In the same time frame I averaged about 7 self portrait shoots a year! I enjoyed doing smoking shots however I started to really enjoy my body in lingerie and nude. HELLO! You only live once and in my young 20s I was so proud of the body I built through being active and CrossFit and so much more. Of course, Instagram hated anything that had skin showing, hell a little glimpse of female nipples and the photo is gone. We do not like to admit it, however sex does sell.
In 2020, I started the job I mentioned in the last post. This cannabis job I absolutely loved. In 2021, I took the steps to make my business more official. I opened up my jewelry page on Instagram and started to think about websites. I used my personal account to drive traffic for my jewelry business. In these story posts, I would use photos from my self portraits.
Sooo last post, ya know how I said I was forced to resign. You may be wondering how any of the above ties into that. Well if you are here for the teaaa it's time!
One day I posted in my Instagram story an artistic topless shot with a bar covering my boobs (censorship). The bar read something that would drive people to look at my jewelry. To be honest, at this point I do not even remember what it said, but I do remember having an interesting new visitor to my story posts that day. It happened to be my co supervisor from work. I did not think too much of it as we are women and I believe in women supporting women. At the same time, this grown woman's friend did not get the supervisor role and made it known that it bothered her. Flash forward, I got really sick. I was wheezing every time I opened my mouth and could barely eat due to my lack of being able to breathe. Not to mention, the manager when I said I had to leave as I felt violently ill looked at me and said “Well you better be okay tomorrow because me and person x won't cover for you”. I was pretty taken aback. My health is more important though so I went and got seen by a physician and while waiting I wrote an email to HR about the treatment I had regarding this. I missed about 8 or 10 days of work, and was sick for about 2 weeks.
My first day back at work I went in with a clear mind, still working on the clear lungs. I was there for maybe 2 hours before I was called into the back room. I was very confused as I hadn’t even been there for 2 weeks. Sitting there was the interim manager and HR, technically one woman. They expressed that they received a complaint regarding me. They followed up with pulling out a photo and asked “do you find this inappropriate?” I do not enjoy confrontation, but when it's in front of me I will not let myself be treated poorly.
I looked up at the two people and said “I find it inappropriate that we are sitting here now. This is my first time back from being sick and the first I'm hearing of this. Is there anything with my work ethic or my role here that is an issue?” To which they replied absolutely not. They let me know that my work has been fine, my work ethic is good as I am timely and get things done and ask for help, etc. Therefore I stated that this is highly inappropriate as this has nothing to do with work and this is a personal issues that should be a discussion. I was told that there is no discussion, this has been in the works since I left for being sick!! (Like what?!) I was told that they could not have a supervisor that people were “uncomfortable with” and my only option was taking a demotion or walking away.
I still think about this and think how ridiculous all of this was. One person, ONE PERSON, seeked out my social media, did not follow me. She saw something she did not like and rather than just not looking, this person decided to screenshot something she saw and send it into HR and make a complaint. This grown person rather than just not looking became a martyr. When sitting there with the option of demotion or leaving because ONE PERSON, ONE WOMAN, was uncomfortable with something she seeked out, what would one do?
I left that day and started to look up my rights. I got in touch with an attorney who works with labor laws. I learned that what they were doing did break some employers' laws. There are many more rights workers have than we believe. One of those laws is that anything that can affect the employee in a negative or positive way must be in their personnel file within 14 days!! The employee must be aware of the changes to the personnel file. This did not happen in my case. After a long conversation back and forth with this cannabis company I walked away. I had to do what is called a “forced resignation”. This is when there is no choice but to resign. I could have stayed. We do have choice and I am accountable to the choice I made. At the end of the day, I could have stayed and kept my head down, however I could not let that treatment stand and no one should.
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